Behind the Numbers: July 27, 2008 - August 2, 2008

Although many considered the poll an outlier when it was published nine days before the Virginia gubernatorial race in 1989, a Washington Post poll showing Lt. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder with a "commanding" lead was among those that spawned a generation of research on potential bias in public opinion surveys...

A little over a week ago, Behind The Numbers took a look at Obama's ability to turn red states blue simply by boosting black turnout over 2004 levels, and found that if all else remained the same, few states would flip without monumental increases. Even assuming 95 percent of African...